cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/356919

‘Omar al-Mokhtar is considered the great symbol for the Libyan resistance (Jihad) against the Italian occupation. In 1922 he reorganized the Mojahideen and re-ignited the resistance against Italy after World War I when the [Fascists] thought that they succeeded in silencing the Libyan resistance. Omar Al-Mokhtar was ill [a] couple of times and many of his comrades asked him to retire and leave the country; he was [nearly] 80 years old. But he refused and kept fighting and he deserved a name given to him as “The Lion of the Desert.” On 16 September, 1931 the [Fascists] hanged Omar Al-Mokhtar in the city of Solouq and they forced the Libyans to watch their hero be hanged. No consideration to Omar Al-Mokhtar's old age, no consideration to international law and no consideration to world war treaties.’

(Source. Note that the ‘Mojahideen’ is not to be confused with the unrelated Afghan mujahideen.)

As paraphrased in the dramatization Lion of the Desert, to General Rodolfo Graziani:

‘We will never surrender. We win, or we die. […] You will have the next generation to fight, and after the next, the next. As for me, I will live longer than my hangman.’

— Omar al-Mukhtar (1862–1931)